A medieval Doom game, Doom: The Dark Ages (codenamed Doom: Year Zero), is said to be revealed at the Xbox Games Showcase. This comes from a new article from Insider Gaming.
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Insider Gaming’s Doom: The Dark Ages article
An exclusive article coming from Insider Gaming says that the FPS series Doom will be going medieval in its next game. This new entry is called ‘Doom: The Dark Ages,’ and was previously referred to as Doom: Year Zero, which was the placeholder name for the game.
Insider Gaming’s Tom Henderson wrote that last year, he heard details regarding this new game, writing it was described to him as “a medieval-inspired Doom world.” He writes that given the description, the project’s placeholder name, and its actual title, we may be getting a look at the Doom Slayer living and slaying in ye olden times and that it could be a prequel to previously released Doom games.
Henderson cites that The Verge’s Tom Warren previously teased that Doom may be making an appearance at the upcoming Xbox Games Showcase on June 9. Insider Gaming has verified this rumor as being true. He also wrote that Bethesda registered a trademark called ‘IDKFA,’ which is a cheat code in old-school Doom games, further hinting that a new rip-and-tear simulator may be announced in the near future.
Leaker @NateTheHate2 expands on Henderson’s exclusive, saying that Doom: The Dark Ages will be revealed to be a multiplatform release and that a PS5 version of the game will be available. Microsoft has previously given the greenlight on porting Xbox games to PlayStation (Hi-Fi Rush, Sea of Thieves, Grounded, and Pentiment), so Doom: The Dark Ages coming to the PS5 shouldn’t be implausible.
Back in 2023, Doom: Year Zero was leaked when Microsoft was having a legal battle with the FTC over the former trying to acquire Activision Blizzard. Microsoft documents were leaked and listed multiple Bethesda projects that were revealed to be in the works, with Doom: Year Zero being one of them. However, it should be noted that these documents date back to 2020 and as such, plans may have changed.
Why would Doom go medieval?
If you’re wondering why Doom would go medieval, there might be an explanation. Doom (2016) and Doom Eternal both showed that the Doom Slayer wasn’t the only demon slayer that existed. On the planet Argent D’Nur (long before the 2016 Doom game), there were warriors called Night Sentinels who served a king named Novik. The Argenta people worshiped entities called ‘Wraiths,’ who bestowed the Sentinels with energy to combat the forces of hell.
At some point, the Slayer came to Argent D’Nur and proved himself by way of combat in an arena, and sometime after, demons invaded Argent D’Nur. Novik took notice of the Slayer and how proficient he was with killing demons, so he ordered that he become a Night Sentinel. In Doom Eternal, players get to roam a destroyed city of Argent D’Nur called Taras Nabad, where they can find a dead demon titan that the Doom Slayer previously killed when he was still a Sentinel. This is the moment when the Doom Slayer became a legendary figure among them.
Given all of this, it’s possible (but unconfirmed) that this medieval Doom game may shed light on what the Doom Slayer was up to as a Night Sentinel before he was sealed away and awakened in the 2016 game. The world of Argent D’Nur has a medieval look and the Night Sentinels are seen wearing armor that’s reminiscent of old-school knight armor, as well as wielding polearms that have energy blades at the end.
Storywise, it’s possible (and again, unconfirmed) that Doom: The Dark Ages may be set around the time the Slayer came to Argent D’Nur and we’ll get to see him become accustomed to life on the planet. We may also witness the moment when he killed the titan in Taras Nabad and became a legendary figure on the planet. Doom (2016) began with the Slayer being awoken from his slumber in a sarcophagus by Samuel Hayden of the Union Aerospace Corporation (UAC) during a demonic invasion. The lore says that prior to this, the Slayer and some Sentinels were sent to hell to win the war against the demons, however, every Sentinel except for one was killed.
The surviving Sentinel Valen, whose son was also a Sentinel and had died while killing demons, let the demons take the Wraiths and their energy in exchange for resurrecting his child. This doesn’t occur in the intended way, as Valen’s son is resurrected as a powerful demon known as the Icon of Sin. Soon after this, Argent D’Nur is destroyed, becoming part of hell itself, and Valen is henceforth referred to as “The Betrayer.”
Despite all of this, the Doom Slayer pushed on, killing as many demons as he could, including another demon titan. He was too powerful for the demons to handle, forcing them to lure him into a temple and bring the whole thing down on his head. The Slayer was subsequently sealed away in the aforementioned sarcophagus before being discovered by Samuel Hayden and Olivia Pierce, the latter being the antagonist of the 2016 game.
This could probably be the ending of Doom: The Dark Ages and show how things came to be in these two games. It may fill in the gap between the Doom Slayer’s arrival to Argent D’Nur and his induction into the Night Sentinels to his awakening by Hayden.
